Hi,

I'm looking for any sources of information for Macro haulers or other large land based transporters. In pacticular I'm looking for inspiration for a game/story I'm writing where the main protagonists have to fend off a tribe of marrauding orks that are attacking a macro hauler transporting slaughtered grox from farms to a the planetary space port to be shipped off-world. The idea is that the live grox are collected from hundreds of farms around the world and slaughtered while in transit to the spaceport. They are processed and frozen during the journey around the planet in this vast mobile processing unit and then loaded onto the waiting transports, at least that is the theory.

The orks on the planet have realised the slow moving vehilcle contains a vast amount of grox meat and are planning to attack the macro hauler, but I'm not sure what the internal layout of the monstrous vehicle should consist of so I'm looking for ideas... Can anyone point me in the right direction to something already available or suggest something?

Thanks.

http://malleus.dk/ordo/Macro.aspx

Sound similiar to the "man slaugther train" I witnessed in "Casshern". Did you fetch the inspiration there? If not, and you are able to lend the movie (from a friend or a "rent-a-dvd" (what is engl. for "Videothek"??) you should give it a look.

Well,

talking lay out, I would advise you to NOT draw a map. Better, get a "feeling" for the wagons.

Wagons with open interior for the living grox, where there a gangways/runways above for the humans/servitors to direct them into the slaughter, vehicles (or to the next empty wagon!). The good think is that if a fight occurs in one of them, the animals will stampede below... and persons falling down are falling into a living meatgrinder!

The "processing" wagons could contain between three and five paralell "lines" where the animals are killed/stunned (at the beginning, in a "kill bin"), and later hooked up and "processed" on a assembly-line like hook system...just like in todays real meat factories (industrial slaugther houses).
Besides the line should be further "human walklines" for servitors who are getting the pieces cut away to bring them into the "freeze wagons" where the flesh is stored cold. make sure you have some "power plant wagons" in between that make sure there is enough energy for the cooling.

Thanks to both Darth Smeg and Gregorius21778 for your replies... I must say I'm very impressed with the website. That will do very nicely for a starting point..

Gergorius, I'm with you on not mapping, I think a general description is the way to go and I can just add details on the fly... And I agree with your suggestions for the slaughter house channels etc... One thing I am unsure of is how it will be driven.. I was thinking of servitors hard-wired into a control cabin at the front of the hauler, but I want the characters to be able to control it also, but I don't think something so big is just going to have a conventional steering wheel and pedals like a regular truck would...

Talking the "controls":
Remember, you are 40k. Logic seconds to coolness at times . For sure, the "cockpit" will house many seat. Perhaps with people influencing the axes of different wagons. But why not simply give it a regular "driver" and a "co driver" who can simply activate it controlls to "take over". This "second one" could be a servitor. Add seats for "vox controls" and "navigation" and you should be fine.

And remember: real life trains and airbuses are hugh as well...but still, you only have to one or two people in command of it. Same is true for the massive "road trains" they use down under in australia. And this pretty baby is just a bit larger, isn´t?

BUT, a navigation system should be there. Me assumes that a monster like this will travell a long distant while the breaks try to stop it

Thanks for the input, I think I'll be including most of your suggestions in my final draft.

Thanks again.